Poll

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Elizabeth (Beth) Sellers has been named the new deputy director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and is scheduled to start December 5. Current Deputy Director Ike Richardson will be taking an overseas project leadership position with Bechtel to be announced next week.

Beth Sellers comes to the Laboratory with nearly 30 years of management experience working for the U.S. Department of Energy and private industry, leading the integration and improvement of large, complex, and technically diverse environments.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is doing its part to raise awareness of breast cancer by holding a number of events in October.
In conjunction with national Breast Cancer Awareness Month, LANL started its “Think Pink for the Cure” campaign the week of Oct. 3.
Events, though, are from over. Coming up this month will be a:
• Cancer care resource fair, 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Oct. 19, Otowi Building cafeteria side rooms.
• A 1.5-mile run/walk, 12:30 p.m. Oct. 19 at TA-3. Sign up at 11 a.m. outside the Otowi Building. Volunteers are needed.

A Record of Decision (ROD) has been issued for the Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) facility Wednesday afternoon by the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Sources close to the situation have indicated the decision has been made to move ahead with the project that promises to be an economic shot in the arm for the Los Alamos area at least during the construction phase of the multi-billion dollar project.

The NNSA is remaining mum on the decision, according to spokesperson Toni Chiri, who said a press release will be issued Thursday morning with details of the ROD.

“We will be spending tonight making Congressional notification,” she said.

Los Alamos National Laboratory has completed demolition of its former Administration Building. Demolition of the 316,500-square-foot building that was home to seven Laboratory directors was completed five months ahead of the original schedule and significantly under budget.

“After we removed all regulated, hazardous materials such as asbestos, our team was able to recycle about 95 percent of the building,” said Darrik Stafford, LANL’s project director for the demolition.

“At more than 300,000 square feet, this was a sizable undertaking,” added John Gallegos of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Site Office. “I am pleased with the results of this project.”

Richard Sayre, one of the nation’s top specialists in algae and energy-producing plant research, has joined the Bioscience Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory to help boost cutting-edge research in this area.

Cited by Nature magazine as “one of five crop researchers who could change the world,” Sayre brings a crew of postdoctoral researchers and a range of funding to LANL.

LANL and a consortium of major subcontractors, including EnergySolutions and Frank’s Supply Company, teamed to help Santa Clara Pueblo this week as families there struggle with the effects of flooding caused by the Las Conchas Fire.

Two front-end loaders from EnergySolutions will help the Pueblo remove debris and mud from retention ponds and drainages. Without properly functioning flood controls, storm water simply flushes down canyon—taking trees, boulders, trash, and anything in its way.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced this week that it had successfully disassembled nuclear weapons “pits” and converted them into more than 240 kg of plutonium oxide, an initial step in permanent plutonium disposition.
The certified oxide is an initial source of feed for NNSA’s Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility, which is currently under construction at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The disassembly, conversion and certification, which were completed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), is a significant accomplishment in an ongoing effort to safely dispose of surplus weapon-grade plutonium.

Los Alamos National Laboratory has set a new LANL record for the amount of transuranic (TRU) waste from past nuclearoperations shipped in a single year to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, NM. In fact, the lab has shipped record numbers of transuranic waste each of the past three years.

The lab’s TRU Waste Program completed 171 shipments in the past fiscal year, between October 2010 and September 2011, breaking last year’s record of 158. The Lab has ramped up its waste disposal effort and has transported more than 450 shipments safely to WIPP since 2009.

Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher Evgenya Simakov has been named by President Barack Obama as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Simakov, of the Laboratory’s Acceleration and Operations Technology Division, was one of 94 scientists within 16 federal agencies nationwide to receive the honor.